Open Letter to the
ICC militantsThe
enthusiasm of the present ICC towards the CNT-AIT leads to the
abandonment of its political Platform and to the "revision"
of marxism

Comrades,

Despite
we have never stopped to keep watching closely and to denounce the
opportunist drift of our organization, we are today filled with
consternation by the process of accelerated rapprochement
towards anarchism that the ICC has entered into
with the abandonment of the principles of the organization and, in
general, of marxism which ensues from it.

In
our two previous bulletins, we have already alerted to this "fatal
trend"1.
Unfortunately we note that, since then, the turn of the ICC towards
anarchism goes on and even manifests itself publicly. It does so with
such a determination that it seems that now it does not encounter any
internal resistance from the militants (if there has been any) even
though the arguments utilized in order to justify this turn are so
contradictory and so stupid - we don't find other words to
qualify them - and even though they are so openly and so clearly
opposed to the platform and the principles of the ICC itself.

Do
revolutionary unions exist today ?

Reading
the report about the late 19th
Congress of Révolution internationale
(in
English only on the "online" pages2),
we see that the ICC has established "fraternal
and mutually confident" political
relations with the anarchist
organization
CNT-AIT that it defines as being part of the "revolutionary
internationalist milieu". Moreover, it seems that this does not
raise the least rejection, the least reticence or dissent ; that
there is not the least internal debate on the relations of the ICC
with this organization. How odd, is not it ? Though we find in
the report-balance-sheet made of this congress a strong statement on
the obstacles the working class is now confronted with in order to
develop its struggle. It notably says that "The
discussion also allowed us to better discern the
present impact of the corralling of the working class by the unions.
Although the workers are not yet near to getting out of the union
grip and the union ideology in order to take their struggles in hand
themselves, the debate brought out the existence, in the workers’
ranks, of few illusions on the role and effectiveness of the
struggles advocated by the unions. If,
despite this disillusionment, the
working class is not yet ready today to mobilise itself outside and
against the unions, it’s essentially
because of the difficulty of again finding confidence in its own
strength. The working class more and more feels the need to fight
against the attacks of the government and the bosses, but
doesn’t know how to struggle without going through the unions.
(…) The union question thus
constitutes a major stake in the future dynamic towards massive class
confrontations" (we
underline).

Thus,
according to the presentation of the Congress, the union
question,
the union
ideology,
the unions
carry on being one of the main obstacles that the bourgeoisie
utilizes against the proletariat to ward off or, at least, to impede
the development of its struggles. But just a few lines further, with
no explanation, we can read a salute to the new fraternal
collaboration of the ICC... with a union organization !
Is not unionism the basic, the principle and the goal of the
CNT-AIT ? For this organization, union is not only a form of
organization of the working class, it is the
unique form of organization for the past as well as for the present ;
and as well for the future up to the point where, according to its
political principles, the unions will be the form of organization of
the future anarchist society :"The
union, today grouping of resistance, will be in the future the
grouping of production and distribution, base of the social
reorganization,
(…). The Congress declares that unionism, as natural and concrete
expression of the producers, contains at latent and organic state all
the activities of execution and direction for ensure a new life"
(CNT-AIT,
La Charte du syndicalisme révolutionnaire3,
Constituent Congress of the CNT, 1946, we translate from French).

Should
we recall to the ICC members what is the position of our organization
about the unions such as it is set out in our political
Platform ?"Having
lost all possibility of fulfilling their initial function of
defending working class interests [in
capitalist decadent phase], and
confronted with an historic situation in which only the abolition of
wage labour and with it, the disappearance of trade unions, was on
the agenda, the trade unions became true
defenders of capitalism, agencies
of the bourgeois state within the working class. (…) The
capitalist function of these organs also applies to all those ‘new’
organisations which play a similar role, no matter what their initial
intentions. This is the case with the
‘revolutionary unions’ and ‘shop stewards’ as well as those
organs (workers’ committees, worker’s commissions…) which stay
in existence after a struggle - even in opposition to the unions -
and try to set themselves up as ‘authentic’ poles for the defence
of the workers’ immediate interests. On this basis, these
organisations cannot escape from being integrated into the apparatus
of the bourgeois state even in an unofficial or illegal manner.
(…) After more than fifty years of experience of the anti-working
class character of these organisations, any
position advocating such strategies is fundamentally non-proletarian"
(ICC
Platform, point 7 on the unions - all the underlinings of the
quotations of the ICC Platform in this text are ours).

As
if it was not enough, the CNT-AIT is characterized too by its claim
of the "union production control" of the enterprises "as
long as capitalism survives :"Considering
that in the pre-revolutionary periods, the role of
unionism is to put up a constant opposition to capitalist forces, to
weaken bosses' power while increasing the unions' one,
the Congress considers that these results can't obtained but through
the introduction of the union control in the
capitalist enterprises,
through the set-up of committees and councils of workshop, factories,
offices, (…). While the documentation job, the technical and
professional education with the view of social reorganization will
be completed, the class training for the production
control will be finally
realized" (CNT-AIT,
Charte du syndicalisme révolutionnaire,
op. Cité, we underline and translate).

Should
we recall to the ICC members what is the position of our organization
about the "workers
management of the enterprises in capitalism" such
as it is set-ou in our political platform ?"This
is why ‘self-management’ (the management of enterprises by the
workers in a society which remains capitalist), a petty bourgeois
utopia last century when it was advocated by Proudhonist tendencies,
is today nothing but a capitalist mystification.
It is an economic weapon of capital in that it tries to get the
workers to take up responsibility for enterprises hit by the crisis
by making them organise their own exploitation.It is a political
weapon of the counter-revolution in that it: divides
the working class by imprisoning it and isolating it factory by
factory, neighbourhood by neighbourhood, sector by sector ;
burdens the workers with the concerns of the capitalist economy when
their only task is to destroy it ; diverts the proletariat from
the fundamental task which determines the possibility of its
emancipation: the destruction of the political apparatus of capital
and the establishment of its class dictatorship on a world scale.Any
political position which (even in the name of ‘working class
experience’ or of ‘establishing new relations among workers’)
defends self management is, in fact, objectively participating in the
preservation of capitalist relations of production.(point
11 of the ICC Platform)."This
mystification, which reached its culminating point with the
experience of 'self-management' and the defeat of the workers at LIP
in France in 1974-5, is today exhausted. However,
it cannot be excluded that it will go through a certain revival in
the future with the renewal of anarchism. In the struggles in Spain
in 1936, it was the anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist currents who
were the flag-bearers for the myth of self-management,
presented as a 'revolutionary' economic measure" (Additional
note of this point of the Platform).

Thus
the ICC Platform establishes that the "workers management within
capitalism" is a mystification, a capitalist trickery, a weapon
of the counter-revolution ; and the organizations which defend
it, such as the anarchist and anarcho-unionist ones, are objective
defenders of capitalist order.Though the present ICC, in obvious
contradiction with this position of principle, declares that an
organization of that type is today... revolutionary !

Should
we too recall to the ICC members that, still according to the
Platform, the specific role of the "non-official",
"revolutionary" or "rank and file" unions is
precisely to be the last beater of the workers towards unionism and
the unions which are organs of the bourgeois State in the proletarian
milieu, and this in order the workers regain confidence in these same
unions ? The present ICC, in full contradiction with its
principles and its policy as well with its practice of the previous
decades, claims to having met today union organizations, such as the
CNT-AIT, which are not "necesarily on the counter-revolution
ground";
this organizations would even been "authentic
part of the proletarian camp" (WR
336).

But, in order to assess the degree of aberration and stupid remark that
the ICC militant presently give their support to through their
silence, let's see the "new history" of anarchism devised
by the present ICC.

Lately, the ICC has published some articles4
on anarchism in which, little by little, it has introduced a new
interpretation of the history of this current ; an invented
history precisely for justifying its collaboration with anarchism.
According to it, it would exist all along history two dissimilar
currents in anarchism : one would be reactionary or reformist
and the other revolutionary and internationalist ; the latter
consistently striving for collaborating and getting closer to marxist
communism. Once the "thesis" been established, in the pure
speculative style - that we already had noticed in other
"theoretical" rantings of the liquidationist faction of the
ICC since 2001 -, our "unmaker" of history ventures to
seek "examples" to "prove" its thesis... The
"trick" of this new history of anarchism is very simple :
making abstraction of the fact that, if some elements or anarchist
groups came closer to marxist communism, they did it insofar as they
gave up their own anarchist conceptions ;
and this giving up has not been but the result of the influence of
the revolutionary movement of the proletariat inspired by marxism,
notably during the 1917-1923 revolutionary wave.But let's accept
for a moment the point of view of this "new history of
anarchism" with the "two currents" worked out by the
ICC in order to see where it leads : "Today,
in France for example, the same name ‘CNT' covers two anarchist
organisations, one
which defends authentically revolutionary positions (CNT-AIT) and
another which is purely ‘reformist' and reactionary (the CNT
‘Vignoles')"
(WR 336, we underline).

Have the ICC militants wondered on which foundations this so marked
distinction between the two « CNT » : is based ?
Is it because the history of each one is so different ? No,
since both come (and claim) from the Spanish CNT which, in 1936, led
the proletariat in the inter-bourgeois war between democracy and
fascism. Is it on their program and principles ? Nor since both
CNTs carry on claiming the same Charte
syndicale [Union
Chart]of foundation in 1946. Is it because the CNT-AIT tends to come closer
to the marxist communist positions ? The so-called Charte
immediatly rejects any political party (included the proletariat's)
as well as the dictatorship of the workers councils (on the contrary,
at this level, it defends a federative organization of unions). Let's
see now what this organization thinks about marxism :"The
International Working Men's Association ["AIT" in French] was
set up in 1864. (…) Since the beginning, the movement has been torn
up between two tendencies : the
authoritarian socialists regrouped around Karl Marx and the
anti-authoritarians - or federalists - around Michel
Bakunin.
For the anti-authoritarian, it is the power, the domination, the
authority which are the very foundations of this society and nothing
will be really changed if the movement which claims to
revolutionarize the world, organizes itself in an hierarchical,
centralizing, authoritarian manner. We
know now to which monstrousness the authoritarian socialism has led
and still leads to. The « libertarians » of that time had
also perceived very well the possible dangers and the bloody drifts
of this doctrine
(…). The marxist-leninist method has failed making running much blood up to
the point where the very idea of revolution has become extremely
suspicious to many and closely linked to the idea of terror"
(CNT-AIT.L’anarcho-syndicalisme,
c'est quoi?, translated by us).So for the CNT-AIT, marxism is authoritarian,
dangerous and could not but drive and still drives to terrible and
bloody monstrousnesses.

In the end, is it the split within the CNT in 1993 (which opened up the
set-up of the CNT-AIT and the CNT-Vignolles) which would have
miraculously given birth to an "authentically
revolutionary" current
as the ICC claims ? Let the CNT protagonists themselves
speak :"Two
lines nevertheless took shape which still became apparent in the
following : for one side, a hard dogmactic line radically
opposing to the [official]
elections of the employees' union delegates and thus to the strategy of
development of the local union organizations, actually withdrawing on
an anarchist-anarchounionist propagandist line ; on the other
side, a line put forward by our organization (oftenly called
CNT-Vignolles) looking for developing a unionism of struggle,
accepting selective participation to elections in order to protect
its local union organizations, refusing the unique ideological
reference of anarchism. These
distinctions are to be relativized : it occurred in the
following that the CNT-AIT unions participated themselves to
elections of unions' official delegates and made excellent union
work ; in addition, those of the CNT participate selectively to
elections. Finally let's note that, locally, when the individuals old
rivalries are absent, excellent relations do exist as well as a
fruitful common work"
(CNT-F. Petite histoire de la CNT-F -
http://
www.cnt-f.org/spip.php?article712).The
CNT members themselves acknowledge not only that the split was based
on secundary disagreements (personal or relative) and not on
principles, but that both parties make still today the same kind of
"excellent union work",
that they are used to have "excellent
relations" beyond the personal rivalries and even a "fruitful
common work".
As we can see, the distinction between an "authentically
revolutionary" CNT and an other one "reactionnary" is not but a
falsification of reality. Comrades of the ICC, do you realize where
you walking to ? What do yo think, comrades, of the "fraternal
alliance"
that the ICC is forging with a union and selfmanagement organization
which does not represent but the last car of the bourgeois compaigns
against communism and, more globally, against the proletariat' class
consciousness ?

Breaking
off with the ICC positions of principles

The opportunist process of coming closer and fraternization with anarchism is accompanied by
an obvious and accelerated process of theoretical "involution"
by this organization. It clearly appears that this coming closer is
not due to the fact that the anarchists have joined the marxist
positions, but to the fact that the present ICC moves aways from
marxism and that it increasingly gives up its positions of
principles.In that sense, the ICC has lately published a serie of
three articles Communist Left
and Internationalist Anarchism"5.
The serie is signed : ICC. It means it is not simply a
militant's opinion, nor of a territorial section's one. It is an
official statement of the organization.
It confirms that there is no internal debate, nor on the
fraternization with anarchism, nor on the "new theoretical"
argumentation which attempts to justify it. The three articles give
us an idea much more complete and precise of the step
the ICC has taken in the revision of its basic principles as well as
marxism in general.
Here is why it is our duty to warn
you, comrades, about what you are supporting through your silence :
the scuttling of the ICC as a proletariat's revolutionary
organization.
You may ignore or smile at our warning. The anarchists - and
finally the bourgeoisie - will applaud you.Comrades
of the ICC, do you realize that this new serie on anarchism is above
all an open
and official break
with all the statements on anarchism that the ICC had defended during
more than 30 years, since its foundation in 1975 up to the beginning
of the years 2000 ? The old ICC, our ICC, had the following
position on the anarchist and anarcho-unionist political
current :"A
political current, the anarcho-unionism, which always wallowed in the
dirty waters of the counter-revolution,
despite its « horror » for dictatorship, for all State
and all government. The irresponsability, the historical incoherence
of anarcho-unionism has remained manifest in this tragic game of
seesaw in the permanent duplicity of the « authorities »,
of the « anti-authoritarian » CNT which revealed a
criminal lack of historical vision and of clear revolutionary theory
that cost the life of much of its militants committed to the cause of
their class... The CNT-FAI, for
its-political ideology and its misunderstanding of the class nature
of the State which prevented it to exert any kind of action for its
destruction, has been the last defence of capitalism against the
working class"
(ICC,
España 1936,
1977, underlined and translated by us6).

Conscious
of the danger that the anarchist current as a whole and its ideology
represent for the new generation of workers and revolutionaries, the
"old" ICC never stopped denouncing the historically and
objectively counter-revolutionary character.As we already
underlined it in various occasions, still in the years 2000, the ICC
was conscious of the direct link which existed between the world
bourgeoisie's campaign about "communism death" and the
revival of anarchism :"In
the years 1990, we have witnessed at the same time
to an anti-communism campaign
which followed the fall of the Berlin Wall in which communism
has been denigrated through its assimilation to stalinism
(while the historical reality shows us that it was the gravedigger of
the October 1917 revolution) and to a promotion
of anarchism as true revolutionary movement in front of the
bolsheviks and Lenin who would have only been simple conspirators who
set up their dictatorship by a « coup d'Etat ». To
present anarchism as « vanguard » of revolutionary
impulsion and Spain 1936 as « model » of social
revolution, does not represent any contradiction with the
anti-communist campaign. Actually, it is its continuation and its
reinforcement. (...)
Capitalism is very conscious that such celestial musics [« the
triumph of democracy and capitalism »] need the critical
counterpoint of ideologies and models which apparently are very
radical but at bottom defend the capitalist order by
other ways"
(Introduction
to the 3rd
edition of the ICC booklet España 1936
in Spanish, translated by us).

It
means that the
development of anarchism
was analyzed and understood by the "old" ICC as a
complement
and a logical reinforcement of the ideological offensive of the
bourgeoisie against marxism and communism.
Actually anarchism is characterized precisely by its permanent battle
against marxist communism, assimilating it voluntarly to stalinism,
to a frightening and bloody dictatorship, that the proletariat should
reject. Two decades after the fall of the Russian imperialist bloc
and of stalinism, anarchism carries on utilizing the campaign on the
"death of communism". It is what we can practically see in
all anarchist web pages and publications when they constantly
"recall" the "marxist bolsheviks' atrocities".What
does today the "new" ICC say about it ? "The
attitude of the majority of the Bolshevik party in the years 1918-24
(the indiscriminate banning of the anarchist press, the armed
confrontation with Makhno’s army, the bloody suppression of the
Kronstadt uprising, etc) opened up a huge gulf between revolutionary
Marxists and anarchists" (Communist
Left and internationalist anarchism, part 3, WR 338,
October 2010).

In
other words, the ICC of today participates to the bourgeois
campaign supported by anarchism about the "crimes and the
horrors of the communist bolsheviks" !

We
could mention other examples which show that this "new"
serie of articles of the ICC on anarchism breaks with its position on
anarchism, that it says exactly the contrary of what it had supported
since its foundation. It is enough to note that, in this serie, there
is no reference, no quotation, of old texts of the ICC on anarchism
to support the new affirmations. On the contrary, here the ICC goes
back on its previous positions up "to apologize" for having
criticized and denounced anarchism, up "to aknowledge
exagerations and previous mistakes" in what it used to say on
this current. Finally, in a footnote, the essential design of this
serie of article is expressed with clarity :"This
being said, during the debate that has taken place recently,
anarchist comrades have rightly protested against certain exaggerated
formulae which appear to pronounce a definitive and unjustified
sentence on anarchism [here
stops the English version of this footnote, we think important to
make known the whole original version in French,7
may be the English translator saw the open rejection of the past
positions too obvious. Thus we translate it]. Going back
again in some of our former texts, we have also found passages that
we would not write today. For instance :-
« workers
individuals can think they adhere to revolution from anarchism, but
to adhere to a revolutionary programme one must break with
anarchism »(International Review102)
[this quotation is not too available in the English pages of the ICC
web site, we thus translate it] ;-
« that
is why the proletariat must resolutely turns away from these
illusionmongers that are the anarchists »
(http://fr.internationalism.org/ri321/anarchisme.htm)
(...)" (WR 338,
2010, Communist Left and internationalist anarchism,
http://en.internationalism.org/wr/338/internationalist-anarchism-part-3).

So,
in a footnote, the present ICC has found "passages" of
its old publications "that he would not write today".
Comrades of the ICC, are you ashamed today of having called
during three decades the workers to get rid of the
counter-revolutionary traps of anarchism ? Should not we call
anymore the proletariat and the elements searching for revolutionary
coherence to get rid of its utopian and reactionary madnesses ?
Is there no more need for the proletariat for resolutely break off
with anarchism ?Let's imagine for a while - sorry
for the digression - that the present ICC is in Spain in 1936
and that it defends in front of the working class, its "new"
slogan : workers, you must not break with the CNT-AIT because
this one is "authentically revolutionary" !
Do you realize that you would oppose to the "majority" of
Bilan,
that you would be besides the POUM and the anarchists and that,
finally, the ICC at its level would participate to the defeat of the
proletariat in Spain and then to its massacre in the world
imperialist butchery ?

Increasing
open break with the ICC Platform

The
new serie of articles considered as a whole, gives us a much clearer
overview of the tendency of the present ICC to let aside, to globally
bury, its own political Platform.According
to it, "fundamental points of agreement [do exist]
between the internationalist anarchists and the communist left. For
the ICC, without denying that important differences exist, the
crucial thing is that we are all determined defenders of workers’
autonomy, since we refuse to give our support « even in a ‘critical’
or ‘tactical’ way, or in the name of the ‘lesser evil’, to a
sector of the bourgeoisie - whether the ‘democratic’ bourgeoisie
against the ‘fascist’ bourgeoisie [let's
forget the role of the CNT in 1936 !],
or the left against the right, or the Palestinian bourgeoisie against
the Israeli bourgeoisie, etc. Such an approach has two concrete
implications:1. Rejecting any electoral support
or cooperation with parties which manage the capitalist system or
defend this or that form of this system (social democracy, Stalinism,
‘Chavismo’, etc)2. Above all, during any war, it means
maintaining an intransigent
internationalism, refusing to choose
between this or that imperialist camp. »(‘The Communist Left and Internationalist
Anarchism’, Part one, WR 336).All those who defend these
essential positions in theory and practice need to be aware that they
belong to the same camp : the camp
of the working class and the revolution"
(Communist
Left and internationalist anarchism, part 2, WR 337,
we underline).

All
in all, for the "new" ICC, it is enough to shout "workers
autonomy",
"rejecting
electoral support"
and "an
« intransigent » (?)
internationalism" to
find favour with it. Actually,
this ICC draws these "basic points" not from its political
Platform but from the "principle gruel" of various groups
and individuals marked with dilettantism, verbal radicalism,
confusion and who claim themselves as "anti-bolsheviks",
"autonomists", "anarcho-councilists",
"situationists", "pro-revolutionaries", etc.
Let's have a look to the positions of a group of this kind which
names itself Círculo
internacional de comunistas antibolcheviques [International
Circle of Anti-bolsheviks Communists] :"1)
Communism
is not a philosophy nor a political programme
to which the thought and the action of the working class can be
ajusted. It
is the action of the working class itself
(...) [or
as says the present ICC, "marxism is not but only a label"] ;2)
we defend the development of the autonomy
of the proletarians in struggle (...);3)
we are for the consequent
revolutionary internationalism
(...) [intransigent !
Would add the present ICC] ;4)
we struggle for the radical
and full self-liberation of the proletarians ;5)
we defend the proletariat's central place as revolutionary class,
(...) the proletariat's central place as revolutionary class means
moreover that the
proletarians' emancipation does not depend but only on their own
efforts8"
(we
translate from Spanish).

As we can easily notice it, it does not exist any difference with the
points that the ICC considers as "fundamental".
With these approximate generalities, the ICC puts aside thus its
marxist
political programme.The
very list of "important disagreements" that the present ICC
says it has with anarchism, is significant of its "new"
policy:"And
there are indeed important divergences between them :-
Centralism/federalism- Materialism/idealism- Period of
transition or ‘immediate abolition of the state'-
Recognition or denunciation of the October 1917 revolution and of the
Bolshevik party" (Communist
Left and the internationalist anarchism, part 1, WR 336).The
affirmation of some divergences (certainly important) enables it to
avoid carefully questions as the union one, which can only lead to an
uncompromising confrontation with the practical policy of the
anarchists and other anarcho-unionists (with whom it fraternizes
today). It does the same in regards with two other basic questions
which have marked the antagonism between marxism and anarchism :-
the need for the proletariat's political party : for marxism,
"the
existence and activity of the party are an indispensable condition
for the final victory of the proletariat"
(point 16
of the ICC Platform), while for anarchism, the political party is the
worst evil that the working class can suffer from. Marxist communism
so struggles for the settting up of the party, for the proletariat's
vanguard organization, while anarchism (of which the CNT is one of
the finest pieces) makes all it can to prevent the working class to
set up one ;-
the questions of the proletariat's dictatorship which clearly reveals
to which point the present ICC gives up non only its own political
Platform but also marxism in general.

Thus,
this new serie of articles of the ICC about anarchism is significant
non only for what it says but also for what it forgets to say. It is
notable that the fundamental axis of the opposition between marxism
and anarchism, it means the dictatorship of the proletariat, is
not even mentionned in the
three articles dedicated to the exposition of "the points of
agreement and disagreement" between the two currents ! The
present ICC has "forgetten" this fundamental concept of
revolutionary marxism, historically key and verified in the practice
of our class (the Paris Commune and above all the Russian Revolution
in 1917) ; this concept is though clearly posed and defended in
its own Platform, but it prefers today to speak about it with
modesty, maybe for not hurting the sensitive ears of the anarchist
"friends".

In opposition to this basic principle of marxism, the
anarchist current defends as a basic principle "the immediate
abolition of the State".
It is the reason why, consequently, it violently rejects the
proletariat's struggle for political power, it means that it rejects
and fights against the proletariat's dictatorship. This basic
opposition, of principle, is as clear for the communists as for the
anarchists, and this since Marx and Bakunin themselves. For instance,
let's see how the greatest figure of anarchism- that
up to today no consequent anarchist disowns -
presents it :"The
Difference Between Authoritarian and Libertarian Revolution.
It
is this point which mainly divides the Socialists or revolutionary
collectivists from the authoritarian Communists, the partisans of the
absolute initiative of the State (...) Only
the Communists imagine that they can attain through development and
organization of the political power of
the working classes, and chiefly of
the city proletariat (...) whereas the revolutionary Socialists, the
enemies of all ambiguous alliances, believe, on the contrary, that
this common goal can be attained not
through the political but through the social (and therefore
anti-political) organization and power
of the working masses of the cities (...). Hence the two
different methods. The Communists
believe that it is necessary to organize the forces of the workers in
order to take possession of the political might of the State. The
revolutionary Socialists organize with the view of destroying, or if
you prefer a more refined expression, of liquidating the State. The
Communists are the partisans of the principle and practice of
authority, while revolutionary Socialists place their faith only in
freedom" (M.
Bakunin, Stateless socialism :
anarchism).

On the contrary, for communism - since Marx -, the
destruction of the bourgeois State and the instauration of the
dictatorship of the proletariat is, no more no less, the immediate
historical goal of the proletarian revolution.
It is what gives a true class meaning (totally different to the one
anarchism gives to it) to "workers'
autonomy",
to "intransigent
internationalism"
and to all the proletariat's fight against capitalism ; it is
the point of departure of the communist revolution, of the struggle
for the abolition of the salaried exploitation and the division of
society in classes. Is it necessary to recall to the ICC comrades the
abc of Marx's theory ?"Long
before me, bourgeois historians had described the historical
development of this struggle between the classes, as had bourgeois
economists their economic anatomy. My own contribution was 1.
to show that the existence
of classes is
merely bound up with certain
historical phases in the development of production;
2.
that the
class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship
of the proletariat;
3.
that this dictatorship itself constitutes no more than a transition
to the abolition
of all classes and
to a classless
society" (Marx's
letter to Weydemeyer, March 5th,
1852).

"In
these circumstances, proletarian dictatorship is not only an
absolutely legitimate means of overthrowing exploiters and
suppressing the resistance, but also absolutely necessary to the
entire mass of working people, being their only defense against the
bourgeois dictatorship which led to the war and is preparing new
wars. (...) In capitalist society, whenever there is any serious
aggravation of the class struggle intrinsic to that society, there
can be no alternative but the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie or the
dictatorship of the proletariat. Dreams of some third way are
reactionary, petty-bourgeois limitations. That is borne out by more
than a century of development of bourgeois democracy in the
working-class movement in all the advanced countries, and notably by
the experience of the past five years" (Lenin,
Thesis and Report on Bourgeois
Democracy and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat,
March 1919, 1st
Congress of the Communist International).

As
well, the ICC Platform affirms that :
"The
seizure of political power by the
proletariat on a world scale, the
precondition for and the first stage in the revolutionary
transformation of capitalist society,
means in the first place the total destruction of the apparatus of
the bourgeois state. (...) As the lever
of economic transformation of society, the dictatorship of the
proletariat (i.e. the exclusive exercise of political power by the
working class) will have the fundamental task of expropriating the
exploiting class by socialising the
means of production. (...) On the basis of its political power, the
proletariat will have to attack the political economy of the
bourgeoisie by carrying forward an economic policy leading to the
abolition of wage labour and commodity production and to the
satisfaction of the needs of humanity (ICC
Platform, point 15).

It
is this fundamental
opposition (and not a simple "disagreement") between
marxism and anarchism
that the ICC of today voluntarely forgets. Here is why, finally, all
the supposed "basic agreements" that it presents in its
serie of articles, aren't but pure quackery, a smoke-screen to
attempt to hide a major political fact, it means that the ICC
fraternizes with anarchism by abandoning its own Platform of
political principles and marxism in general. Is not there the purest
expression of political opportunism ? Unfortunately, this
fundamental opposition is not only "theoretical" :
history has already
resolved and enabled to see where the struggle leads to when it is
based on one or the other principle ; in the first case, to
Russia 1917, in the second to Spain 1936 ;
in the first case to the triumph of the proletarian revolution, in
the second to the proletariat's bloody defeat and to its enlistment
behind a bourgeois fraction. As says Lenin : "there
can be no alternative".

Comrades
of the ICC, do you remember the Internationalisme
formula
from which the ICC claims to be the heir ? "Whithout
revolutionary theory, there is no revolutionary movement".
Is it necessary to recall you the first point of our political
Platform about the theory of the communist revolution ?"Marxism
is the fundamental theoretical acquisition of the proletarian
struggle. It is on the basis of marxism that all the lessons of the
proletarian struggle can be integrated into a coherent whole.
By explaining
the unfolding of history through the development of the class
struggle, that is to say struggle based on the defence of economic
interests within a framework laid down by the development of the
productive forces, and by recognising the proletariat as the subject
of the revolution which will abolish capitalism, marxism
is the only conception of the world which really expresses the
viewpoint of that class. Thus, far
from being an abstract speculation about the world, it
is first and foremost a weapon of struggle for the working class.
And because the working class is the first and only class whose
emancipation necessarily entails the emancipation of the whole of
humanity, a class whose domination over society will not lead to a
new form of exploitation but to the abolition of all exploitation,
only marxism is capable of grasping social reality in an objective and
scientific manner, without any prejudices or mystifications of any
sort. Consequently, although it is not
a fixed doctrine, but on the contrary undergoes constant elaboration
in a direct and living relationship with the class struggle, and
although it benefited from prior theoretical achievements of the
working class, marxism has been from
its very inception the only framework from which and within which
revolutionary theory can develop."

Comrades of the ICC, we demand and require a clear response : is "marxism
the fundamental theoretical acquisition of the proletarian
struggle"?
Yes or no ? Yes or no, is it "the
only conception of the world which really expresses the viewpoint of
that class" ?
Is marxism the indispensable weapon of the working class struggle ?
Yes or no ? Is it "the only framework from which and within which revolutionary theory can
develop" ?
Yes or no ? Or rather... "should we go beyond the labels of
marxism and anarchism"9 ?

We demand and require a clear response. Is there within the present ICC
a single militant who still defends marxism and opposes to anarchist
and anarcho-unionist ideology ? If
so, then he must rise up and fight
before revisionism ends up suffocating the ICC for good, before he
becomes accomplice of the ICC liquidation as Communist Left
organization, as marxist organization, as organization of the
proletariat !

October 2010.

Last
minute :
In
this end of October 2010, it appears that the process of "internal
liquidation" of the ICC is living a strong speed up. After
having politically open the door of the Proletarian Camp to
anarchism, now the ICC opens it its own press : two articles of
the CNT (How
to struggle ? By mean of an autonomous popular resistance and
What
is a general assembly ?)
with a strong "libertarian" tonality, have found their
place on its web site ; and it seems to just be the
beginning.As militants excluded (by force) from the ICC, we have the right to
wonder if all the members of this organization - which is still,
normally, marxist - have been "informed beforehand",
if they have had the possibility to debate and decide collectively of
this incredible initiative, or if they have simply been put in front
of the fact already done ? What ever it is, where are they going
to let the ICC drift goes to ? Up to its death for the
proletariat ?

4.
See the serie The Communist Left and internationalist anarchism,
what we have in common (WR 336,
337 and 338)

5.
The Communist Left and
internationalist anarchism : (1st
part) what we have in common ;
(2nd
part) : On the difficulties of debating and the ways to
overcome them ; (3rd
part) : The approach needed for this debate.
We can read them in the ICC press and also on its web site in
different languages (www.world.internationalism.org).

8.
Círculo
Internacional de Comunistas Antibolcheviques. The complete text can
be consulted on http://cai.xtreemhost.com/orientacion.htm
; on the web site of this "circle". We can find too a list
of web links with pages of closed groups and individuals amongts
which we find the GSL
of México,
one of the anarchist groups which the ICC collaborates with
presently.

9As
now the ICC presents also the relation between marxism and
anarchism : "But under the same label of
‘marxist' there are genuinely bourgeois and reactionary
organisations. The same goes for the ‘anarchist' label"
(WR 336,
1st
article of the serie on Communist Left and Anarchism).

Fraction of the International Communist Left
- International Communist Bulletin 3